The Inmate Who Tried to Kill Hitler

This is the story of Henry Wermuth, who went from observing hate to experiencing its brutality. A young German Jew who bravely attempted to assassinate Hitler.

For young Henry, the 1930s in Germany was an unsettling and tense place. He recalls the unease adults around him felt, a feeling echoed by his daughter, Ilana, who now resides in England.

She remembers her father describing pre-Holocaust Germany as a place where Jews were regularly verbally abused, akin to the chants she hears at anti-Israel protests in London and across the world. Eventually, the abuse became physical.

As she watches as Jewish students are barred from their school campuses, libraries and lecture halls, she remembers her father describing Jews being barred from local places.

Henry with his parents and sister

Her father talked about Jewish businesses being boycotted in 1930s Germany, mirroring the BDS movement calling for Israeli businesses to be boycotted.

Henry's entire family was murdered during the Holocaust. He survived and was barely a skeleton when his camp was liberated. His journey to recovery was long and difficult. His life after the war is a testament to the strength and resilience of the Jewish people.

Ugly Jews

Born in 1923, Henry was just 10-years-old when Hitler rose to power. One day, he stood at a town square looking at the hideous caricatures, suddenly realizing that these hateful images were of Jews.

Uniformed men in Hitler’s party would drive through their streets chanting hateful words, such as “If Jewish blood splashes off the knife, it tastes twice as well.”

“The chant makes no sense,” said Henry, “but it was chilling.”

Henry with his father

The Jews in Europe were well integrated; they had equal status to their non-Jewish peers. The Holocaust did not start in a day, it did not start with gas chambers. It began with hateful rhetoric and propaganda campaigns.

After months of observing the hateful campaigning in Germany, Henry, together with his parents and sister, were deported from their homes in 1938 and went to live with relatives in Krakow, Poland.

Henry as a young man

Forced into labor along with his father, in Klaj, a small town outside the ghetto, he waved goodbye to his mother and sister, refusing to believe this would be the last time they would see each other. Eventually, they were transferred to Krakow-Plaszow Concentration Camp, which Henry described as the most harrowing of all the camps he endured.

Assassination Attempt

It was 1942 when Henry caught wind of rumors that Hitler might pass by on a train near his workplace. Henry believed in taking action, so at just 19 years old, an inmate at the labor camp in Poland, he snuck out and partook in a sole mission of assassinating Hitler.

Henry with his daughter Ilana

Taking a huge risk, he snuck through the forest, evading the guards, and obstructed the train track with stones and large chunks of wood. The next day, Henry anxiously anticipated the sound of a collision but it never came. He never found out what had happened.

Death March

In July 1944, they were relocated to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Claiming to be carpenters, Henry and his father were transferred to Auschwitz-Monowitz to work at the IG Farben factory. Their trials persisted, and shortly after, in January 1945, they were sent on a Death March, shortly thereafter arriving at Nordhausen, then a camp in the Herz Mountains, and later Helmstett.

Tragically, Henry's father succumbed to the brutality just eight days before liberation. Guilt, relief, and unimaginable grief were just some of Henry’s emotions when he was finally rescued. He was in extremely poor health and faced the daunting task of rebuilding his life without any friends or family by his side.

Moving to Britain, Henry found success as a businessman, marrying and starting a family of his own. In recognition of his brave attempt to assassinate Hitler, Henry was honored with a medal by the German government in 1995. He was also posthumously honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II with a British Empire Medal for his services to Holocaust education.

Henry passed away at age 97, and his legacy and life’s work live on. He wrote a memoir, “Breathe Deeply, My Son” and you can watch a documentary about him at www.henrywermuth.com